Harold C. Helgeson

World-Renowned Geochemistdies at 75

Harold C. Helgeson passed away on May 28 after a brief illness. Hal is survived by his wife France Damon Helgeson, his children Christopher Helgeson of Mountain View, Kimberly Helgeson of Hollywood, and Broghan Helgeson of Santa Cruz and Tufts University, his grandchildren Nicolas, Jeremy, and Alexander Helgeson, his daughter-in-law Catherine Helgeson, and his brother John Helgeson. He is also survived by his brothers-in-law Rick and Jon Damon and wife Susan and many nieces and nephews, Andrea, Jessica, Maddy, Malia, Katie, Evie, Ben Damon, Elena Damon Copus, and one great-niece, Sydney Copus. He also has many friends, colleagues, and past and present students.

Hal was a man who loved life and tackled it head-on. He has been a distinguished professor at the University of California, Berkeley, for nearly 40 years. His career as a geochemist has brought him great distinction and numerous awards, including, in 1998, the prestigious Goldschmidt Medal of the Geochemical Society, the geologist's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, and the Urey Medal from the European Association of Geochemistry 2004.

Hal was born in Minnesota on November 13, 1931, and grew up in St. Paul. During the summers he worked as a canoe trip guide in the backwoods of northern Minnesota and southern Ontario. He loved the outdoors, and thus decided to major in geology at Michigan State University, where he earned his BS. After graduating, he was employed by Technical Mine Consultants as a mining geologist, and went to the north shore of Lake Athabasca in the Northwest Territories where he drilled for uranium deposits. There he braved temperatures as low as 80 degrees below zero.

After surviving an Arctic winter, Hal was called to service in the U.S. Air Force, where he served as an intelligence officer stationed in Wiesbaden, West Germany. That assignment gave him the opportunity to travel in Europe. Following his military service, Hal landed a job with De Beers, the diamond company, and worked as a mining and exploration geologist in the diamond mines of Southwest Africa. There were many adventures during that time, and throughout his lifetime. Chris was born while Hal was exploring for diamonds so Hal requested a transfer to a gold mine in the Witwatersand which was closer to his family. He then worked in a copper mine in Northern Rhodesia Zambia, just south of the Belgian Congo.

After 3-1/2 years as a mining geologist in Africa, he worked mapping and sampling old gold mines in British Columbia and Alaska. He then entered the graduate program at Harvard where he specialized in geochemistry. After completing his Ph.D. at Harvard, Hal was hired by Shell Oil as a research chemist. Three years later he became an assistant professor at Northwestern University. Finally, in 1970, he began 37 years of teaching and research at Berkeley, where he remained active until his death. In the last year of his life, he completed work on a pathbreaking paper, to be published shortly, which outlines a completely new and seminal understanding of the manner in which oil is created under the Earth's surface.

Hal met his wife, France, in San Francisco and courted her by taking her skiing in Zermatt, Switzerland, renting her a villa for a year in Cannes, sweeping her off her feet and marrying her in Zurich in 1986. He was devoted to his family and was extremely proud of his children's accomplishments.

Hal was the quintessential bon vivant. Hal loved sailing, snow-skiing, and Jimmy Buffett. He took his family on annual ski trips to Northstar. He kept his sailboat berthed at South Beach Marina adjacent to SBC Park and was a Giants season ticket-holder. He loved taking family, friends, colleagues, and students out sailing on San Francisco Bay, where he fearlessly asserted the right of way over much larger vessels. He loved to socialize, whether over very long lunches or late into the night. "The purpose of life, " according to Hal "is to have lunch". Hal was truly inexhaustible. He was funny, warm, extremely charismatic, wonderfully wild, wildly creative, and unbelievably generous, yet still down to earth, topping it with one of the most beautiful and calm speaking voices. He has traveled the world giving lectures and enjoying adventures. He was a truly great teacher and taught his students not just how to be original and creative scientists but how to enjoy life as well. Hal has a devoted coterie of colleagues and students. He was a master planner and always enjoyed life to the fullest.

At his laboratory on the Berkeley campus, known as Prediction Central, Hal performed amazing theoretical research on thermodynamics, mass transfer, inorganic and organic geochemistry, protein folding, the origins of life, as well as the genesis of petroleum deposits. He was instrumental in creating the emerging field of biogeochemistry. The theoretical research has been balanced by much exciting work in the field, including a summer spent deep-water diving off the coast of Sicily and the island of Vulcano investigating microbes that grow in hot-water springs. Hal hosted a conference of NATO scientists on a sailboat in Greece one summer, and spent recent sabbaticals in Cannes, Naples, and Honolulu. Hal has traveled the world lecturing top scientists in such venues as Tokyo, Budapest, and Moscow, where he avidly sampled local lifestyles and enjoyed meeting the people.

Hal was a unique individual, truly one of a kind. He was a Viking, a man of remarkable strength, endurance, and will power, and a truly brilliant and creative scientist who deserved the title of genius. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him. We love you, Hal!

-- His devoted family

www.legacy.com/santacruzsentinel